Marin's trademark is his characters' strong Chicano accents.[3][4]
Early life
Marin was born on July 13, 1946, in South Los Angeles, California, to Mexican parents Elsa (née Meza; 1923–2010), a secretary, and Oscar Marin (1922–2015), a police officer for the LAPD and US Navy veteran of World War II.[5] Marin was born with a cleft lip, which was surgically repaired. Marin identifies as Chicano; he speaks some Spanish and often uses it in his movies.[3][4]
Marin's nickname "Cheech" is short for "chicharrón", fried pork rind, which is a popular snack and ingredient in Latin American cuisine.[6] In a 2017 NPR interview, Marin attributed the nickname to his uncle: "I came home from the hospital, I was like a couple of days old or something, my uncle came over and he looked in the crib and he said [in Spanish], 'Ay, parece un chicharrón.' Looks like a little chicharrón, you know?"[7]
In 1955, Marin and his family moved to Granada Hills, California, and he attended primary school at St. John Baptist de la Salle Catholic School. Marin then went to high school at Bishop Alemany High School, during which he started to attend folk music events at the Ash Grove on Melrose Avenue as a teenager. Afterwards, he studied at California State University, Northridge (then known as San Fernando Valley State College), where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa.[8] During his second semester at CSUN, he worked almost full-time at Nordskog Industries in Van Nuys, while enrolled more than full-time as a college student. It was also during this time that he was socially introduced to marijuana through his fraternity, a key feature in his later film career, in addition to becoming acquainted with Timothy Leary at a Students for a Democratic Society campus event, who would become a lifelong friend. Soon after graduating CSUN as an English major in 1968, he auditioned to sing for Frank Zappa's band, The Mothers of Invention. Not being offered the gig during his audition, a day later Marin moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in order to evade the draft during the Vietnam War.[9] Marin met his future comedic partner, Tommy Chong, in Calgary, Alberta.[10]
As a part of the highly successful comedy duo Cheech & Chong, Marin participated in a number of comedy albums and feature film comedies in the 1970s and 1980s. Tommy Chong directed four of their films while co-writing and starring in all seven with Marin.
After Cheech & Chong disbanded in 1985, Marin starred in a number of films as a solo actor, most notably Born in East L.A., which was also his directorial debut, The Shrimp on the Barbie, Tin Cup, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He made a cameo appearance as a dockworker in Ghostbusters II. In 2004, he made his second appearance as a policeman, as "Officer Salino" in the film adaptation of John Grisham's holiday novel Skipping Christmas, under the title Christmas with the Kranks, starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. In 2009, Marin appeared as an auto mechanic in Race to Witch Mountain. In 2017, he played the voice of a Corrections Officer in the Pixar film Coco.
Marin appeared in the Fox sitcom Married... with Children as the voice of the Bundys' Briard dog, Buck; he voiced the character in three episodes: Look Who's Barking, Change for a Buck and Assault and Batteries. He made the transition to full-time television work when he co-starred on the short-lived The Golden Girls spin-off The Golden Palace (1992–1993), and later with Don Johnson, Jaime P. Gomez, and Yasmine Bleeth in the police show Nash Bridges (1996–2001), in which they played San Francisco police-detective partners. A movie of this series was rebooted in 2021.[11] In recent years he has been active in playing supporting roles in films and performing voice overs for animated features. After appearing in a supporting role in Judging Amy, playing an independently wealthy landscape designer, Marin starred in the CBS sitcom Rob, with Rob Schneider.
Marin encouraging people to wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the Government of California's "Your Actions Save Lives" campaign in 2020.
Cheech appears in several episodes of AMC's Lodge 49 as El Confidente, a member of Lodge 55 in Mexico.[12][13]
Children's music albums and related works
Marin has released two best-selling albums in the children's music genre, My Name is Cheech, the School Bus Driver (1992) and My Name is Cheech, The School Bus Driver "Coast to Coast" (1997). Both albums were released bilingually. In July 2007, the book Cheech the School Bus Driver was released, written by Marin, illustrated by Orlando L. Ramirez, and published by HarperCollins.
In 2005, Marin lent his voice to the animated children's series Dora the Explorer.[14] He appeared in the episode "A Crown for King Juan el Bobo" as the Puerto Rican folk hero Juan Bobo.[15]
Marin also sings on the hidden track "Earache My Eye" on Korn's album Follow the Leader. It is a cover of an original song by Cheech and Chong. The song is performed by a fictional singer named Alice Bowie, played by Marin, whose appearance consists of a tutu, a Disney mouse ear hat, nipple tassels, an eye mask and dress socks. This character is featured on the cover of Cheech and Chong's Wedding Album and the end of the duo's first film, Up In Smoke.
On March 18, 2010, Marin beat journalist Anderson Cooper and actress Aisha Tyler on Celebrity Jeopardy!'s Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational. Cooper admitted he was "crushed" by Marin.[16] Marin also won his semifinal round early May but lost in the May 6–7 final to Michael McKean. He had previously won the first Celebrity Jeopardy! tournament in 1992.[17]
The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry
Marin is an avid collector of Chicano art and started his collection in the 1980s. Two national touring exhibitions have featured works from his private collection. He feels that it's important to "use his celebrity status to call attention to what he saw as an under-appreciated and under-represented style of art".[19] In collaboration with the city of Riverside, California, and the Riverside Art Museum, Marin established The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture & Industry, in the City of Riverside, which opened June 18, 2022. Marin will be donating his collection of over 700 pieces of Chicano art, the largest collection of such art in the world.[20] The center will provide a location for the presentation and study of Chicano art, and is expected to draw international attention.[21][22]
Other interests
He is an avid golfer, although he initially disliked the sport until he co-starred[23] in the golf-themed comedy Tin Cup. Marin also practices horse archery on a special course built on his private land.
On April 19, 2018, Cheech (as part of GLE Brands Inc) signed an agreement with Heritage Cannabis Holdings Corporation (CSE: CANN) to have exclusive rights to use cannabis and cannabis-related products utilizing the Private Stash brand throughout Canada for a period of 2 years, with the agreement automatically renewing for an additional year upon achieving various milestones.
Marin was married in 1975 to Darlene Morley, who co-produced Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers and also played minor roles in earlier Cheech & Chong films under the name Rikki Marin. The couple had one child and divorced in 1984. Marin married artist Patti Heid in 1986; they had two children and have since divorced. Marin married his longtime girlfriend, Russian pianist Natasha Marin, on August 8, 2009, in a sunset ceremony at their home.
Cheech also makes an appearance as the Padre in the (then) fictitious Machete trailer for the 2007 Grindhouse double feature. The trailer appears in the DVD for the Planet Terror portion of Grindhouse.
A documentary covering Marin's lifelong advocacy for Chicano art, and his efforts to develop The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry.
Marin, Cheech; Hassan, John (2017). Cheech Is Not My Real Name...But Don't Call Me Chong!. New York: Grand Central Publishing. ISBN9781455592340. OCLC974034992.
^Biography.com (ed.). "Cheech Marin Biography". The Biography.com website. A&E Television Networks. Archived from the original on July 7, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
